Slow RAM count on startup

[grystn]

I have a lot of IBM Netvista workstations at work, and there is something puzzling me about two of them.

These machines are about 4 years old, work horses, sufficient for what we need at work. About a year ago, 1 machine started doing a slow RAM count when posting. It would start counting from 8MB at 8MB increments until it hits however much physical memory is available after shared video. I have updated the bios, set the motherboard setting to factory default, swapped out memory chips. No change. It effectively changed the bootup time from about 30 seconds to 2+ minutes.

Just lately, I came across another machine behaving similarly. Besides the slow posting, nothing is broken. No hardware change before that started either.

I am not sure what I am dealing with here, or if it is fixable. I suspect impending motherboard/bios chip failure, but as mentioned, the first computer to do that is still kicking after a year.

Any one has any idea what might be causing this?

 

[gondo]

In the BIOS settings you have something for quick startup POST mode. When activated like most computers it scans the ram quickly.

If deactivated it scans the RAM slowly like in your case and checks it for errors. I also disable the quick POST when I build a new system just to quickly check the RAM for some possible errors. I will then put it back to quick POST after the build.

This may or may not be your problem but check if you have a quick POST mode that is disabled.